The Disappearance of Mauray Murray (UPDATE: Oxygen series debuts 9/30, trailer on post 312)

[Guestx]

The Mysterious Disappearance of Maura Murray

What I'm going to offer you here is a very brief "starter pack" of info along with resources for further investigation. This is not all the information that's available . . . not even close. I know more than I'm writing here, but there's still a ton of stuff that I've been meaning to read/listen to/watch that I have not yet gotten around to. So you, my fellow Sherdog sleuths, can help discover the truth to this mystery.

Maybe if we work together we can solve it!


Here's the upshot:

On February 9, 2004, 21 year old Maura Murray disappeared on Route 112 in Haverhill, NH after crashing her car into a snowbank. No witnesses claim to have seen the actual crash, but multiple witnesses saw her on the side of the road, including bus driver Butch Atwood.

Atwood claims that he asked Maura if she wanted him to call the police. She pleaded with him not to and said she had already called Triple A. Atwood believed that this was a lie, because cell service was virtually nonexistent in the area at the time. He lived across from the crash site and went inside and called the police anyway.

And this is where it gets weird: Atwood talks to Maura, drives his bus into his garage, goes inside and calls the authorities. An officer shows up approximately seven minutes later. But when the officer shows up, Maura is nowhere to be found. None of the multiple witnesses (neighbors who lived by the road) claim to have seen where she went. One minute she was there, the next she was gone.

And Maura Murray has never been seen again.

Maura Murray: The All-American Girl​

Name: Maura Murray
DOB: 5/4/1982
Place of Birth: Hanson, MA
Height: 5'7"
Weight: 120 lbs

As noted above, Maura was born in in 1982 in Hanson, MA. She was the fourth of five children. Her father, Fred, was a nuclear medicine tech. Her mother, Laurie, was a nurse.

At the time of her disappearance, Maura was a a nursing student at the University of Massachusetts. She also happened to be a track star and was a long-distance track state champion. In addition, she was an avid hiker who loved spending time in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

Maura had a boyfriend, Billy Rausch, to whom she was expected to get married. In an interview with Billy's mother, Sharon, originally posted on the missing person's website ProjectJason.org, she said of Maura:

Smiling and quiet laughter are as natural to Maura as breathing. Thank you notes from Maura were received by anyone who offered to her the slightest kindness. Maura's favorite color is blue. She likes fruit and French-Vanilla coffee for breakfast. She appreciates simple things like Gala or Fuji apples or a "just ripe banana."

She was also smart. She scored a 1420 on the SATs and was accepted into West Point before landing at UMass.

Or was she?​

While many report that Maura was a sweet kid and an all-around good girl, it seems that she also had a dark side.

As mentioned, she was accepted into the West Point military academy. That's true. But she was also kicked out, after stealing a $5 compact of makeup from the Commissary. She violated the academy's code of conduct, they said.

After transferring to UMass, she got in trouble again. $80 in fraudulent credit card charges were traced back to her when the card owner reported them on her statement. When the police confronted her, she said she found the card number on a receipt. All of the charges were to food places. Interestingly, each charge was about enough food for two people. While she may have been ordering for two, there was apparently a rumor going around that she was bulimic and this seems to support that. Ultimately, she was put on probation for the offense with the promise that it would come off her record if she stayed out of trouble for the next three months.

Just a few days before her disappearance, she attended a party in a friend's dorm room. On the way home from the party, she crashed her father's car, doing about $10,000 worth of damage. Even though it's certain that she was drinking that night, with her father having ridden with her to buy alcohol before the party, for whatever reason she was not brought up on DUI charges. If she had been, it would've violated her probation.

The Crash Scene​

According to the Wikipedia article:

At 7:46 pm, a Haverhill police officer arrived at the scene. No one was inside or around the car. The impact had pushed the car's radiator into the fan, rendering it inoperable. The car's windshield was cracked on the driver's side and both airbags had deployed. The car was locked. Inside and outside the car he discovered red stains that looked to be red wine. Inside the car the officer found an empty beer bottle and a damaged box of Franzia wine on the rear seat. In addition, he found an AAA card issued to Maura Murray, blank crash report forms, gloves, compact discs, makeup, diamond jewelry, two sets of MapQuest driving directions (one to Burlington, Vermont, another to Stowe, Vermont), Maura's favorite stuffed animal, and Not Without Peril, a book about mountain climbing in the White Mountains. Missing were Maura's debit card, credit cards, and cell phone, none of which have been located or used since her disappearance. The police later reported some of the bottles of purchased liquor were also missing.

At 8:00 to 8:30 pm, a contractor returning home from Franconia saw a young person moving quickly on foot eastbound on Route 112 about 4 to 5 miles (6 to 8 km) east of where Maura's vehicle was discovered. He noted that the young person was wearing jeans, a dark coat, and a light-colored hood. He didn't report it to police immediately due to his own confusion of dates, only discovering three months later (when reviewing his work records) that he'd spotted the young person the same night Maura disappeared.

The Leading Theories​

There are multiple theories surrounding the case, but three have stood out among the rest:

1. Maura Was Kidnapped and Killed - This is the favorite of Fred Murray, who believes that "a local dirt bag" snatched her and killed her.

2. Maura Walked Off Into the Woods and Died - When police arrived on the scene and found the alcohol inside, they assumed that the intoxicated driver left the scene to sober up and would come for their car later. Apparently this is a common occurrence. Except that in this area, far from town, there wasn't much place to go except for into the woods. This theory presumes that Maura was in fact drinking while driving and that, especially in light of her probation, she was very interested in staying out of trouble. Did she wander off into the snowy woods, only to die of exposure?

3. Maura Murray Intentionally Disappeared - This is James Renner's favorite theory. Renner, who we'll discuss in a second, is the foremost researcher on the case and has been working on it for years. He thinks there was probably a tandem driver who was traveling with her and that the second driver picked her up. Renner believes that the stresses in Maura's life were taking their toll and that she intentionally disappeared to start a new life.

Where to go from here?​

There are a number of good resources for the Maura Murray case. Here are some good places to get started. . .

James Renner

Renner, as mentioned, is often regarded as the foremost authority on the case. He has, for several years, maintained a regularly updated blog on the case, which you can find here:

http://mauramurray.blogspot.com/

It has a ton of info about his investigation, much of which was compiled into this book:

The Missing Maura Murray Podcast

This is a GREAT YouTube-based podcast on the Maura Murray case. These guys, over the course of 31 (so far) episodes have delved very deeply into the story. Renner has been a guest on there as well as a few other independent researchers.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPYyMAOgPl6krkHylgs0-Bw

There is no way, to my knowledge, to directly download the episodes but you can use the following site to download the audio as an MP3:

http://www.listentoyoutube.com/


The Disappeared Episode

This was many people's first exposure to the Maura Murray case. Here's part 1. The rest are also on YT:




Short "10 Years Later" Local Production

Let's get to work!​

So there it is guys. We have a case to solve. I know we have some true crime aficionados around here so I'm interested to see what everyone comes up with.

I'm also going to call Team JonBenet in on this one: @kevy2pale @AnGrYcRoW @Thundarr @ralphc1 @DaleBoca @TheWorm @IloveTHIS @J. Bernie Cunningham @cabear @drstrangelov @ajwbjj87 @grinderman @Banchan @jgarner @Legumes @Jackie Blue @Supereem @Mike90 @covenant @Kraysla @NHB7 @bandicoot @Black Angus @MusterX @sloppypie @mjmj @aBlaze @MTT @EnterTheNinja @The_Renaissance

 

[BisexualMMA]

Has anyone contacted Kathy Bates?

 

[drstrangelov]

We went to college together apparently. Can't say I remember meeting her, but then again she disappeared my freshman year. Or is that just what I want you to believe?

 

[J. Bernie Cunningham]

One question will shine a lot of light....

Where was she going when she crashed? If those closest to her have trouble answering that, I'm pretty confident she was seeing someone who she ran off with.

A lot to live up to, pressures of school and family, with flashes of an aversion to it all and s desire for something gritty like crime. Definitely the type to be seeing someone exciting, to the obliviousness of those closest to her.

Those meals for two weren't bulimia, it was her buying for whoever she ran off with. A lot of these stories have accomplished students/ athletes at the core. To me that's telling.

 

[ajwbjj87]

Has anyone contacted Kathy Bates?

Lol this was the first thing that popped into my head. To me though it seems like she purposely disappeared , I mean even if she was hammered and didn't want the cops called she could have probably haggled with the bus driver to lend her a hand without having the police involved. She also could have not been drunk and was desperately trying to get away from something, something that alerting the police to would not end well for her.

 

[HomeRun916]

In.

 

[Guestx]

Where was she going when she crashed? If those closest to her have trouble answering that, I'm pretty confident she was seeing someone who she ran off with.

A lot to live up to, pressures of school and family, with flashes of an aversion to it all and s desire for something gritty like crime. Definitely the type to be seeing someone exciting, to the obliviousness of those closest to her.

Those meals for two weren't bulimia, it was her buying for whoever she ran off with. A lot of these stories have accomplished students/ athletes at the core. To me that's telling.

No one knows. Her dad is insistent that she was going to this spot that he and she had been going to since she was a kid. He thinks she was just going away for the weekend to decompress. But he doesn't know that for sure.

Here's an interesting thing: All the stuff in her dorm room was found packed up in boxes, as if she was leaving. But that stuff was left in the room, rather than found in her car. So if she was leaving, it doesn't seem certain that she had left quite yet. Why pack everything up just to leave it behind?

Regarding running off with someone, maybe. It looks like Billy Rausch was cheating on her. But on the other hand, there are also reports that she was sleeping with multiple male members of the track team. If she left with someone though, it wasn't any of those guys.

This ties back into James Renner's theory about the tandem driver. If there WAS another driver, who? And where is she now?

 

[DIABOLUS]

Never heard of this case. Very interesting read. Must.....take....notes............for my screenplay!

 

[faustian]

We went to college together apparently. Can't say I remember meeting her, but then again she disappeared my freshman year. Or is that just what I want you to believe?

TS you need to edit this^^ into the OP

 

[Guestx]

Lol this was the first thing that popped into my head. To me though it seems like she purposely disappeared , I mean even if she was hammered and didn't want the cops called she could have probably haggled with the bus driver to lend her a hand without having the police involved. She also could have not been drunk and was desperately trying to get away from something, something that alerting the police to would not end well for her.

Could be. But if she did leave with the intent to disappear, where is she today? In today's technological society, it seems hard to disappear. (But not impossible.)

Apparently there have been reports of Maura sightings in Canada, but of course it's impossible to know if they were legit.

 

[Jack Reacheround]

Aliens.

But it's obvious she was drunk when she crashed, which is why she didn't want that one guy to call the cops. She probably wandered off into the woods, trying to pull a Jon Jones and leaving the scene so they couldn't ever prove she was drunk at the time of the crash. And she probably died in the woods





After the aliens abducted her, anally probed her, and beamed her back to Earth.

 

[Guestx]

Aliens.

But it's obvious she was drunk when she crashed, which is why she didn't want that one guy to call the cops. She probably wandered off into the woods, trying to pull a Jon Jones and leaving the scene so they couldn't ever prove she was drunk at the time of the crash. And she probably died in the woods

After the aliens abducted her, anally probed her, and beamed her back to Earth.

She could've died in the woods. Though from what I've read, no footsteps were found in the snow around the area of the crash and, despite extensive searching, no remains were found either.

 

[MusterX]

I remember this case I think. I need to brush up on it in a bit and I'll post something @shadow_priest_x

 

[I Am Legion]

I ran track and slept with most of the attractive girls...athlete girls,are horny.

 

[Guestx]

I remember this case I think. I need to brush up on it in a bit and I'll post something @shadow_priest_x

Cool. Dive into James Renner's blog . . . if you dare. It's a lot of info to sift through.

 

[Guestx]

I ran track and slept with most of the attractive girls...athlete girls,are horny.

Now that this information is available, pretty sure we're one step closer to solving this thing.

 

[I Am Legion]

Now that this information is available, pretty sure we're one step closer to solving this thing.

It does paint a picture A girl that gets around eventually has to get rid of a clinger. She hooks up with the next guy and the clinger loses it......or the boyfriend finds out....The issue is the lack of a body or forensics away from the car

 

[Hollywood Jack]

I'm pretty much ruling out the theory that she was kidnapped from the scene and then killed. I suppose I can't rule it out entirely, but it seems the least likely. I find her wandering off because she was scared of getting a DUI and having her probation/clean record revoked to be much more believable. She might have been planning to leave eventually, but this seems spur of the moment. She left all her stuff in her dorm room. Assuming she had cell service, maybe she called someone to pick her up. I doubt she planned it to end that way all along. The most likely scenario to me is that she wandered off and perished in a way where her remains will be almost impossible to find. There may be a remote possibility that she escaped somehow and stayed under the radar, either up until now, or perhaps she was killed while in hiding at some point.

PS - These are just my initial hunches from reading the OP and the first 10 replies or so. Haven't watched any of the embedded videos or links. I'll try to check those all out when I can...

 

[Hollywood Jack]

I ran track and slept with most of the attractive girls...athlete girls,are horny.

Suzy (Sexual) Favor(s) Hamilton.

 

[Guestx]

It does paint a picture A girl that gets around eventually has to get rid of a clinger. She hooks up with the next guy and the clinger loses it......or the boyfriend finds out....The issue is the lack of a body or forensics away from the car

Yeah, it's as if she literally vanished into thin air. Just poof. Gone.

I know there were at least two independent witnesses (Atwood and a neighbor in another house), and I want to say there may have actually been three, but even though they saw Maura out there no one claims to have seen her the moment she got into someone else's car/walked off.